by June Lin-Arlow, AMFT

Ever since I started as Editor of Impulse, I have been thinking with people on the Impulse committee and NCSPP board about the question, “what is psychoanalytic?” It might be psychoanalytic to build upon foundational analytic theories by Freud, Klein, Lacan, and Winnicott. Or use these theories to examine a situation or dynamic. As we have published and shared articles this year, we have gotten questions about whether some of the articles we choose to publish are psychoanalytic or not.  

The working definition that we started with was that anything that looks beneath the surface of commonly held assumptions about reality can be psychoanalytic. It also feels important to go beyond historical gatekeeping to highlight voices that are not commonly heard in the dominant discourse from subjective lived experience or theoretical perspectives. I like to think of what we share here as incomplete - contributing factors that inform our thinking, but not necessarily coming to any sort of conclusion that might close down the need for further thought. 

For example, a commonly held belief common in the United States is that “if you work hard and do the right things, you can rise above poverty.” In Sorry to Bother You, Boots Riley explores how Black people use their “White voice” to conform to standards of White professionalism in order to rise in social class. The tradeoff is between an authentic self and success. He goes further to make a social critique that capitalism needs poverty to exist because without a permanent class of underemployed people, workers would have too much power to make a capitalist system work. Taking in these perspectives, which I believe are psychoanalytic, helps us in our work with patients and our efforts to look beneath the surface. 

Recently, I also went to I am Speaking, Can You Hear Me?, an exhibition by Kenyan American artist Wangechi Mutu at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco (it’s still there!). The mere presence of her work alongside the permanent exhibits in a museum built to showcase European art forces you to look beneath the surface. The dissonance between Mutu’s organic figures constructed from clay, wood, shells, and hair juxtaposed with the bronze and marble sculptures by Auguste Rodin might even cause you to question the old placards on the walls. Was Camille Claudel, Rodin’s colleague and lover, really as “mad” as they made her out to be? Large prayer beads made of clay are draped across the room, interrupting your path and stopping you in your tracks. 

When I was editing a paper for a psychoanalytic journal earlier this year, one of the editors suggested that I “remove academic language to reveal underlying emotional truths” in the case I was presenting. I emphatically agreed, but as I started to go in and delete the theory upon theory, citation upon citation that I carefully laid out to build my thesis, I felt exposed and vulnerable. Were my thoughts, feelings, and descriptions about what was going on enough? It didn’t feel rigorous. Would people take me seriously if I didn't cite anyone from the psychoanalytic canon?

I have heard thoughts like these from so many colleagues that I’ve started to think that maybe we are all feeling secure and comfortable in our academic language. A collective defense mechanism to protect against anxiety. Sometimes I sit in conferences listening to presenters read their papers, struggling to stay awake, and after they’re done, I am shocked that they actually speak like normal people. I believe that for psychoanalytic spaces to be inclusive and welcoming, we need to question our assumptions, especially about what is valued and what is Other. I’m very interested in hearing about what you all have to say about this topic, so please feel free to reach out to me at jlarlow@ncspp.org.